Perhaps
you've seen it: the video of a man being roughly subdued by a posse
of Austin, Texas policemen numerous enough to corral the Dalton
gang.* The victim's crime in the capital of the Lone Star State?
Jaywalking.
I
counted about eight police originally involved, with at least two
patrol cars racing up later—all Sturm und Drang (or
should it be son et lumière?)—sirens
blaring and light bars blazing. That such a contingent of cops would
be deployed to haul in a total of one (alleged) jaywalker and one
inquisitive bystander got me to thinking; here are the (admittedly
contradictory) results of my ratiocination:
1—Austin,
Texas is the safest city in the country. If
so much police presence can handily be deployed to nail a single
jaywalker, that must mean that there is no other crime around for the
cops to deal with.
2--Austin,
Texas is the unsafest city in the country.
If so much police presence congregates in one place to nail a
jaywalker, then the rest of the burg must be open city to murderers,
rapists, muggers, and other miscreants.
3—Austin,
Texas has too many cops. At a
ratio of ten cops (counting the later-arriving prowl car guys) to one
offender, the police force is surely over-stuffed. At least half the
force would seem to be surplus to requirements (I love that British
locution).
4—Austin,
Texas has too few cops. If it's
really going to take ten police to nail one offender, then Austin
better start hiring in case a major crime wave (something like
multiple jaywalking) breaks out.
5--Austin,
Texas police are a bunch of weaklings.
Really, it takes ten officers to haul in one unresisting male and
a female bystander?
6--Austin,
Texas police deserve credit. At
least they didn't shoot anybody. And though jaywalking is obviously a
major criminal activity in Texas, the police recognized that it isn't
a capital offence (yet).
***
*If
you haven't, it's here:
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